BACK TO VENTURE DEVILS

This week I start my official “back to school” work at ASU Sky Song. I will have between four and six new student groups (all grade levels, undergraduate and graduate students) that want to start a new business. Last Friday we had an all-day session (mentors and ASU staff) to discuss this year’s new ventures. There are approximately 60 of us who work in this capacity, and we will have close to 400 student groups to mentor.

All of us are experienced mentors and selected for our knowledge and experience to serve in this capacity.

Most exciting and rewarding for each of us mentors are the exciting innovations that will come out of this group. There is another benefit: these student groups, for the most part, do not have any business experience thus as a mentor I don’t have to “break” old business habits. They are eager to learn and succeed and accept our guidance with an open mind and believe that they will create a profitable business by the end of the academic year (next May).

These students have a lot of advantages over a small business owner opening a new business. They have no expenses, they have a free mentor (free to them) to work with them for an entire year, and they have free access to legal and accounting support. All the “state of the art”  ASU facilities are open to them to build, design and research using the latest technologies.

The prize in all this is their ability to, at least twice a year, make a presentation to obtain capital for their venture.  A great number of these groups will get somewhere between$1,000 and $10,000 at the end of the first semester to help develop their business. They will have additional opportunities the second semester to present their businesses for additional capital.

To sweeten the pot, there are venture capitalists that are very involved with this program and are carefully watching these student businesses to invest in their future.

This program at ASU is rated the number one innovation program in the United States ahead of such schools as MIT and all the California Schools.

As we continue to develop our BizQuack format, all my student groups have become members and they refer to it almost daily. They are my “beta” testers and are validating our investment in our belief that BizQuack is the best support source for small businesses.

Why not go out on a limb?  That’s where the fruit is.  Mark Twain